Future Fathers: Livestreamed VR Birth, Womb Kick Smartwatch for Dads

Future Fathers: Livestreamed VR Birth, Womb Kick Smartwatch for Dads

Our modern connectivity is a marvelous thing, and never more marvelous than when it’s connecting a father with his child.

And BTW, if you don’t want your noodle baked, then stop reading. Things are about to get cranked up to 11 on the future scale.

How crazy could connectivity get, right? How about a dad watching his baby’s birth through a VR headset? How about dads feeling their unborn children kicking through a smartwatch?

IS YOUR BRAIN MELTY YET?

Just for Kicks

So you’re super involved in your partner’s pregnancy, right? Every time your child does the Cossak dance across your partner’s uterus, do you rush to feel it?

Scandinavian diaper brand Libero and developer Volontaire have a wearable for parents who want to share every kick with each other. Mom and dad both wear a “BabyBuzz” on their wrist – and when the baby kicks, mom clicks a button on her BabyBuzz that vibrates dad’s BabyBuzz. Check it out (product shows up at 2:14):

The box you’ve got to wear is a little unwieldy for a real wristwatch at the moment. It’d be rad to try and develop this as another wearable so dads could feel the “kick” somewhere other than their wrist. Coincidentally, Huggies and Ogilvy & Mather Argentina actually developed a waist-band for this sort of thing, but it’s also giant.

I’ll give you a minute to sniffle and wipe those tears. No, I get it: it’s dusty, you’ve got allergies. I totally get it.

What I like about the Samsung Gear VR the most is that there’s a lot of potential here for stuff like military dads watching their babies’ births while on deployment. It’d be great to use this technology for good – for connecting families that can’t be near each other.

(Now, just mix the Samsung Gear VR with abdominal electrodes to make dad feel like he’s actually having the baby.)